It’s seems to be that gold is pretty common to find in the ancient world regardless of the culture. Statues, jewelry, clothing, etc. However gold just doesn’t seem to be all that abundant. So what happened? Why did gold become so much more rare as time went on, or has it always been this rare? Where were all the major gold mines in the ancient world and are they depleted?
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Population and proportions.
Most of what we see in the ancient world are the elites – because these were the people who were literate and left enduring writing, who could afford monumental tombs, etc. These people rarely bothered writing much about the commoners.
Commoners also make up a much larger proportion of the population than poor people do in the modern day – you need 90% or more to just farm to keep society rolling. On top of that, populations are much smaller than in modern times. As a result, the elite (who make up basically all the records we have) which can afford gold is *very small*, and consequently has potential access to a lot of gold per person.
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